Earlier this fall, a children’s book that was originally released four years ago stood in the spotlight as many readers criticized its sexist portrayal of women in a professional environment. Barbie: I Can Be A Computer Engineer is an installment in the I Can Be series starring none other than Barbie herself. This sounds like the type of book that would empower young girls to engage with science and technology and encourage them that anything is possible through hard work. Instead we see that Barbie is only able to be a computer engineer if her male friends are there to fix all of her mistakes.
I will not ruin the plot for those of you so inclined to read the short book, but the gist of it is as follows: Barbie, computer engineer, thinks of an idea for a game about a cute puppy. However, she needs some of her male friends to actually write and run the program. Next, Barbie accidentally crashes her computer and spreads a virus to another computer, so logically, a pillow fight breaks out. Have no fear, though, because her male co-workers swoop in just in time to save the day, while Barbie watches from the side. In the end Barbie takes all the credit for herself.
What does this book teach girls and boys? It signals to girls that they are expected to depend on men in the technology industry, and it also shows young boys that girls are not capable of doing things on their own. This book is wrong for so many reasons, the main reason being that the publisher did not even hesitate to call the sexist message into question before mass production occurred.
Mattel publically apologized for its portrayal of Barbie and pulled the book from shelves after four years. However, this does not make everything okay since it took four years for someone to do something even though the book had become a public issue through blog sites, Facebook and other forms of social media long before Mattel stopped selling it. This is just one example of Generation Y's feminist upsurge.
Feminists are trying to shake the negative connotation associated with the title. Many still think of feminists as angry, men-hating hippies who do not shave, when in reality they are just normal people who happen to believe in the equality between men and women. The first step toward equality is to change the mindset of people and the way they view women. What happens on Capitol Hill will not matter if citizens are not even aware of their sexist habits.
The writer of this children's book should be ashamed. To think of a story where a woman is dependent on men in a stereotypical work environment is offensive because this was the way in which the author views a woman working as a computer engineer. Society has told us that women are not as good at science and mathematics as men are. This assumption was perpetuated simply because years and years ago, women were not granted the same opportunities to learn as men, although it had nothing to do with a mental capacity to learn.
Hopefully this blip in Barbie’s career as a role model for young girls will open the eyes of men and women of all ages to the gender-based stereotypes that surround us, and from this awareness we can learn to eradicate meaningless perceived differences between sexes.
